Wife of slain Mountie Const. Dave Ross from Kings County

A photo of RCMP Const. Dave Ross with his wife Rachael is displayed Sundayt as Pastor Jerry Reddy greets the congregation at Hillside Baptist Church in Moncton. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

SHEFFIELD MILLS — The tragedy of three RCMP officers killed in Moncton last week is affecting one area of Nova Scotia particularly hard.

Const. Dave Ross, the youngest of the three slain Mounties, was married to a local woman with deep family connections in Kings County.

Ross’s wife Rachael, formerly Van Der Ploeg, is from the small farming community of Sheffield Mills, about a 15-minute drive north of New Minas.

The young couple have a 19-month-old son and another baby due in three months.

“It’s really affecting Kings County, that’s for sure,” said Kings North MLA John Lohr, a member of the same Dutch immigrant farming community that Rachael came from.

“We are devastated here in the area that Rachael would be in this situation, with her husband being murdered in this way,” said Lohr, who also attends the same church Rachael did when she lived here.

“We’re just shocked,” he added. “Our sympathies go out to Rachael and her family.”

Lohr knows her father, John Van Der Ploeg, and aunt Arlene Gerrits, from another prominent Dutch farming family in Kings County.

“Van Der Ploeg is a Dutch name, so that touches the Dutch community, as you would expect,” he said.

“This is happening to a pretty big community of people who know Rachael. It has been the subject of discussions. Rachael attended New Minas Baptist Church, where I attend. She used to babysit for friends of mine.”

Rev. Rob Nickerson, senior pastor at the New Minas church, said Rachael hasn’t lived in this area for some years.

“But she and her family have many connections here … And as a church we have a host of connections with Moncton,” said Nickerson, who once lived in the neighbourhood where last Wednesday’s shootings and subsequent manhunt took place.

“The Maritimes is a small community and events like that hit very close to home,” he said.

“It was certainly a little more sombre mood to our worship (Sunday). While it wasn’t the focus of the service, we did speak to those events and certainly have been praying for the families affected and for the Moncton community.”

He said members of the Van Der Ploeg family have long ties with the New Minas Baptist Church.

“We have a number of folks here who know and remember the family very well.”

The RCMP’s regimental funeral service in Moncton for the three officers will be live-streamed at the New Minas church hall beginning at 1 p.m. Tuesday. The public and members of local RCMP detachments have been invited to attend.

“A community is always stronger when it stands together to face hard times and now is time for us to stand with those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice,” said Lohr.

“It’s a horrible loss,” Lorna Edwards, mother-in-law of Rachael’s brother Fred, said Monday when contacted at her Kentville home.

Other family members were in Moncton for the public visitation for the three fallen officers and could not be reached for comment.

Ross, 32, a dog handler and general duty officer with New Brunswick RCMP’s Codiac detachment, was from Victoriaville, Que. He was shot through the window of his police vehicle while responding to a report of an armed man in a residential neighbourhood in Moncton.

Also killed that night were Const. Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, 45, from Boulogne-Billancourt, France, and Const. Douglas James Larche, 40, from Saint John, N.B.

Two other officers were shot but survived. Constables Darlene Goguen and Eric Dubois suffered injuries that were not life-threatening. Both have since been released from hospital.

The shootings were followed by a 30-hour manhunt that had much of the city locked down. Justin Bourque, 24, was arrested early Friday. He has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.